


Nightmare

by TooRational



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon is just a suggestion anyway, Episode Tag, Hurt Jesus (Walking Dead), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, You can take Jesus (Walking Dead) from my cold dead hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-01 23:41:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16775278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TooRational/pseuds/TooRational
Summary: Jesus crumples to the ground and Daryl's entire reality crumples with him.Or: Jesus gets stabbed. Jesus survives.





	Nightmare

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't seen any of the season 9 episodes but I've been spoiled to hell. Expect this to be wildly inaccurate, both with regards to TWD canon and medical stuff, but honestly, I don't give a fuck.
> 
> Dedicated to all Jesus stans. Chin up, my lovelies. They can't hurt him anymore. He's ours now. <3

The walkers are gone, the fog finally dispersed enough to see more than a foot in front of your nose, and Daryl turns around to check where everyone is.

Michonne is good, Aaron's fine, Jesus is just dealing with a few stragglers, all is well.

His eyes linger a little, as they always do with Jesus. It's like a drug, he can't help himself, his body doesn't obey when it comes to the sneaky ninja. This time it's fascination at the way he moves, efficient and deadly. So fluid it looks effortless.

And then Jesus swings and _misses_.

Daryl questions his eyesight and brain in that hundredth-of-a-second, because how? It's nearly impossible, something is wrong, Jesus doesn't _miss_. How many times has he drilled his starry-eyed classes of kids and adults on being prepared for everything, being aware of your movement and surroundings? Daryl knows it, saw it himself a hundred times from a distance, a shaded corner, while lurking like a coward. Jesus knows his shit, this can't be happening.

But it happens, and the walker isn't where it should be because walkers don't move like that, and there is something very, very wrong here, and then shock freezes Daryl head to toe because—

Because—

Jesus crumples to the ground and Daryl's entire reality crumples with him.

He can't move.

He can't _breathe_.

It feels like he's been dropped into ice-cold water, sudden and unforgiving, and a thousand needles are stabbing him from all sides at the same time.

He watches, numb, as the walker runs away ( _runs away?_ ), as Aaron rushes over to Jesus, and the static in his ears grows louder and louder.

No, _no._

No no no no _no no no_ —

This is a nightmare. It's a nightmare, it's gotta be.

It can't be real because if it is, if Jesus is really—

Michonne brushes against him as she walks by and Daryl's mind skips like needle on a record. The images come fast and disorienting, random and disconnected, Jesus from the moment he met him till now, so full of life, so helpful, so useful, so smart, so mischievous, so lovely...

Daryl can't take his eyes off him, still and small and silent, lying on the ground like he's nothing at all. As if he isn't _vital_ in all the ways a person can be.

It's wrong, this whole thing is _wrong_ , and horrifying, and seeing him like this breaks Daryl's heart into a million pieces. That _useless fucking armor_ he was wearing didn't even help, and Daryl wants to _rip it away and burn it_ , smash it, _cut it_ off him, off Jesus' chest and back so he can—

_Wait._

Is that—

It's barely there, and he could very well be imagining it, but—

"Move," he growls as he drops to his knees next to Jesus, without a single clue how he got there, and jams a shaking hand into Jesus' neck.

Nothing, nothing, nothing, _noth—_

_There_ , oh holy shit, there, that was a beat.

_He's still alive._

"Gimme something to bind the wound, _now_."

Daryl has no idea how he's talking right now, since his throat is burning and his chest is seizing, but he has to, so he _does_. Keeping Jesus alive could be a matter of moments, of seconds, of one breath and the next, and nothing else matters but him.

_Nothing else matters_ , because if he loses Jesus right now, it's gonna be the last straw. There is barely anything left to live for, the losses piling up one after the other after the other, and if he goes, if Jesus goes, Daryl will give up. He'll simply give up, he knows it in his bones.

Two folded pieces of fabric and a long-sleeved flannel shirt materialize in front of him, and with that person's help Daryl tightens the shirt around Jesus' middle so hard the man moans in pain.

_Good_ , that's good. If he's in pain, he's alive.

Daryl's hands shake but he ignores it.

He ignores the hands reaching for Jesus, too, and picks him up himself, cradles him possessively and jealously. Whomever wants to take Jesus from him right now will have to take him by force because he's _not_ letting go. He barely feels the weight of him, even though he realizes somewhere in the back of his brain that he should be struggling. Jesus is compact muscle through and through, passed out he should weigh a ton.

He doesn't.

The trip back to the Hilltop is a blur of darkness and dread, stretching endlessly and over in a blink. Daryl doesn't think, doesn't feel. He can't do either if he wants to keep hold of his sanity. The sanity that somehow got helplessly tangled in the well-being of the man in his arms, and he hasn't even noticed it. Like not noticing you need oxygen until you start choking; _stupid_.

Then again, no one ever said Daryl was particularly smart.

Siddiq is talking right in front of his face, way too close, and they must be at the Hilltop already. Daryl frowns until he finally figures out that they're trying to take Jesus from him because they can't help otherwise, can't work with Daryl holding him, and he doesn't want to, what if he dies, what if they hurt him, what if Daryl survives another loss, _who the fuck_ decided that it's okay to leave _him_ intact and hurt _Jesus_?

It's wrong, and Daryl wants to _scream it out_ until there's no breath in his body, but Jesus has to survive, there is no other choice, no other acceptable outcome, so he makes his arms let go.

He puts Jesus down carefully, as gently as he can, and frost settles in his bones as soon as he does. Whatever Siddiq is saying to his team of apprentices is making them run around in a frenzy of movement, preparing instruments, cutting off Jesus's clothes.

He looks so helpless on that bed. _Jesus_ , who is the picture-perfect example of a self-sufficient, capable survivor. It's agonizing.

Daryl sits on a chair in the corner and shoves his bloody, shaking hands into his hair and waits.

He blinks back tears.

He swallows sobs.

He stares into a single point on the floor for hours.

And he waits.

As dawn starts to turn the sky from black to indigo, everyone but Siddiq, nodding off at his desk, already gone, Daryl gets up with a creak of bones that sounds loud in the stillness. He picks up his chair and sets it carefully next to Jesus' head, and he sits down and stares at him.

He stares at Jesus' lovely, too pale face, at the slight rise and fall of his chest, at the tangle of his dark hair against the pillow, and he wishes, with all that he has inside his scarred, beaten heart, for Jesus to _live_.

"Don't you dare," he whispers into Jesus' ear.

"I'm gonna kick your ass," he threatens, the threat as hollow as the ones he uttered when they first met.

" _Please,_ " he begs, the words ripping out of his chest, and when he pulls back, Jesus' eyelids have gone up just a sliver. Just enough for his eyes to glint like a cat's in the low light.

Daryl's heart skips a dozen beats in a second.

"Hey," he chokes out, and then, in a rush, "You're gonna be fine."

Daryl prays he's not as wrong as he always is, that this doesn't end up just like Sophia did, or Beth, or Merle, or Denise, or Glenn, or Carl, or Ri—

"You better be fine," he says forcefully, and Jesus stares at him for a long time. It feels like he's reading Daryl's mind, like he sees to the very core of who Daryl _is_ , and for the first time ever, Daryl doesn't mind. He has no energy left, nothing to hide behind, and why would he, anyway? What good does hiding do? Either way people die.

He'd give anything to save Jesus from that fate. Laying his soul bare is a small price.

Jesus' lip twitches the tiniest bit, and of course it would, the asshole can't let anything get past him even half-dead, but the faint nod is worth all of it. It's like Jesus is saying ' _don't worry, I got this_ ', and it might be stupid, but Daryl trusts him.

Jesus wouldn't lie to him.

"Okay," Daryl says, stupidly relieved, like that's settled. Like Jesus being his usual self in the face of deadly injury means anything. He could be faking it so Daryl would feel better. He _would_ , if only to spare his feelings.

Infuriating, self-sacrificing _asshole_.

On impulse, Daryl reaches out and cups Jesus' head, presses a lingering kiss to his eyebrow. It's clumsy and awkward because he's never done such a thing, never felt the need, bu it feels _right_. The skin under his lips is warm, the hairs in Jesus' eyebrow prickly, and he's probably imagining the way Jesus leans into him a fraction of an inch. Probably.

This time when he pulls back, Jesus' eyes are closed and his breathing is deeper, more regular. More 'sleeping' than 'passed out and fighting for your life'.

This time, hope blooms under Daryl's ribs.

He takes Jesus' hand in his, carefully, _carefully_ , and waits for him to wake up again.

(He does.)


End file.
